


memento mori

by vindicatedtruth (behindtintedglass)



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 21:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10930677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/behindtintedglass/pseuds/vindicatedtruth
Summary: It's a belief that John has held on to for most of his life.Meeting Harold has completely changed its meaning.





	memento mori

> [pic.twitter.com/YgnM2FVf6U](https://t.co/YgnM2FVf6U)
> 
> — Words ✨ (@Iovelywords) [May 17, 2017](https://twitter.com/Iovelywords/status/864668550929186816)

 

* * *

 

 

_“Remember that you will die.”_

Betrayed by his partner and the CIA, failing to save the woman he loves, John clings to that thought as a twisted sense of comfort.  It won’t be long now before his suffering will end.  There’s nothing to live for, anymore.  He thought he could save the world.  He thought he was fighting for his country.  He thought he could save Jessica.  He thought he was fighting for her happiness.

Instead… he’s a monster with bloody hands who has failed every single person who depended on him.

The Brooklyn Bridge might be a nice place to go, he thinks distractedly.  He has thought, multiple times, of quicker ways to end his suffering (he has killed men and women in his line of “duty” efficiently enough to know), but a part of him, the part that hasn’t forgiven himself, _won’t_ forgive himself, believes he deserves it.  He deserves to suffer just a little bit more before it all ends.  

It’s nothing compared to the suffering he brought upon other people.  How many of those he killed had left behind spouses, children, parents, siblings, colleagues, friends — people who loved them, and who were waiting for them to come back home to them?   How many of them felt raw pain and anguish when they realised they would never see their loved ones ever again?

How many of them felt the way he did when Jessica was taken from him, as if there was now a gaping hole where his heart used to be?

No, he thinks as he downs his tenth bottle of whiskey for the day, this is absolutely nothing compared to the shit he made other people go through.  He’ll punish himself more if he can, because God (or Satan) knows he deserves more, but he’s just… too tired.

He stares at his reflection on the train, and dimly he notes that he looks half-dead already: he hasn’t had a decent meal or a shower in _months_ , and he can’t even remember the last time he had a trim or a change of clothes.  He’s sure he’s reeking by now, though he can’t tell if the stench wafting from him is from the grime accumulated from sleeping on the streets or from the rotting carcass of what’s left of his mangled soul.

“ _Remember that you will die.”_   It won’t be long now.

He sees movement from the corner of his eye, and even his inebriated consciousness isn’t enough to dull out his senses honed by decades of military training.  A gang of delinquents is approaching him—he supposes a lone homeless man like him is an easy target—and he notes the haughtiness in their posture that’s covering up their nervousness and incompetence.

He wishes they weren’t so young.  He doesn’t want the guilt of branding such youth as murderers, should he allow them to kill him.

Ah well, he thinks with an inward sigh as their “leader” begins to taunt him.  Guess he’ll have to die another day.

These kids deserve better than to have his blood on their hands.

 

* * *

 

“ _Remember that you will die._ ”

It’s a slow day at the library; the Number they received earlier that morning had been a relatively easy case: a young girl in danger from her abusive uncle.  All it took was for Harold to uncover all of the man’s past criminal records and his current shady dealings with the drug cartel to land him back in prison and secure a restraining order against him, so that he won’t ever come close to touching the poor girl again; and even if he attempts to do so, John thinks privately as a slow, mercenary smirk spreads over his features, he’ll make sure the man will realise just how bad an idea that will be.

The man is also a pedophile, the kind that inspires so much _hate_ in John that it broils in his gut, and it’s times like these when he has to remind himself that even the scum of the earth like that _fiend_  are human beings too, because as Harold has pointed out numerous times, their job—their _purpose_ —is to save, not to kill.  No matter how every murderous urge awakened in John is screaming at him that some people don’t deserve to be saved.

He closes his eyes, falling back on every meditation technique he has learned and perfected over the years, and counts the space between his breaths until he feels his mind clearing, the boiling of his blood simmering to a manageable degree of protectiveness instead of violence.

Once upon a time, he reminds himself savagely, he was exactly the same.  Scum of the earth.  Doesn’t deserve to be saved.  And then some jackass, who also happens to be a reclusive billionaire with a Messiah complex, barged into what’s left of his life and offered him a job.  Forced it upon him, more like.  Told him he needed a purpose.

The corner of his mouth twitches into a smile.  Slowly, he lets out the breath he’s been holding and lets his eyes flutter open, his gaze unerringly, automatically resting upon the sight of said jackass typing away at his desk.  The midday sun is streaming through the library’s windows and wrapping around his hands like some sort of halo, highlighting the lightning-fast movement of those nimble fingers over the keys.

The heavy tension that has settled upon John’s shoulders gradually eases, and his gaze softens as he sees the minute frown on those lips and the furrowing of those brows, indicating a discovery of a minor glitch in whatever it is that’s being coded; and despite fighting against the feeling every day, John feels his chest tightening with growing affection.

It’s easy to imagine Harold as an angel, looking like that, with divine power emanating from his hands.  It’s not that far from the truth, really; those hands—coupled with that unbelievably brilliant brain—are what created the Machine, after all.  It’s as close to a digital superpower that John has ever seen, and with the life he has led, he has seen plenty of remarkable things: good, bad, and ugly.  

And yet Harold is a wonder in that he flat out refuses to be categorised into any of those things, decidedly remaining _neutral_ and refusing to pick sides or to be bound by any authority—not even the government he now has a healthy amount of distrust for.  It’s something John can understand as a lesson he himself learned a little too late; it’s precisely those in power who do the most harm to the citizens it’s supposed to be protecting.   

John tilts his head as he thoughtfully regards Harold.  With the seemingly bottomless wealth he has amassed, the knowledge he is both in possession of and has access to, _and_ the limitless power of the Machine (should the idea of actually harnessing it ever occur to him), it would’ve been easy for Harold to bring the world to its knees before him.  Hell, he can bring _anyone_ to their knees, if Harold chooses to.  If Harold _wants_ them to.

John swallows at the thought.

Instead, John finds himself in the unsettling position of being the one Harold often kneels _for_ : taking John’s measurements, helping him put on his clothes (or his disguise) for the day, or sometimes helping him _out_ of it, gently and carefully peeling off the layers and tending to the inescapable injuries John has amassed for that day, Harold’s thick glasses not quite hiding the genuine concern in his deep, _beautifully_  expressive eyes.

It makes John want to do whatever it takes to smooth out the worry crinkling the corners of Harold’s eyes and mouth, to still the fretful trembling of his hands, to reassure Harold that he isn’t going anywhere—that he’s not going to let any man, woman, _or_ machine separate him from Harold—not when he has finally found something worth living for.  Someone worth cheating death for, just a little bit longer.

“ _Remember that you will die._ ”

Because to have a man capable of such power humble himself before him, a man he literally owes not just his life to, but his _soul_ to, a man who brought him back not just from the brink of death but from the madness of his own mind… it’s heady and intoxicating, to know that the man who employed _his_ services is the one putting him back together, fold by fold, meal by meal, smile after smile.  

It makes him want to return every service, to show Harold that there is nothing, absolutely _nothing_ , that Harold can ask of him that John isn’t willing to _give._

But Harold, being _Harold_ , has never asked John for _anything_ —save for _one_.  Words often murmured in his ear, the rhythmic cadence as familiar and as _vital_ to John as his own heartbeat; not even an order, but a gentle, heartfelt plea.

_“Stay alive, Mr. Reese.”_

_For me,_ Harold could’ve added at the end of it.  But he doesn’t, because Harold simply wants John to be alive for his own sake, because it’s John’s _right_ to be alive, and not because John owes it to him, even though he _does_.

 _For me,_ Harold could’ve said, but he doesn’t need to.  Because this—John can _give_ this to Harold.  Not because Harold wants him to.  But because after a lifetime of not knowing how to, not even daring to let himself hope that he _deserves_ to… John finally _wants_ to, for _himself._

“ _Remember that you will die._ ”

This time, he wants something far more essential than merely living.  Because after a lifetime of having it just beyond his reach, the tips of his bloodied, burned, broken fingers just grazing the edge before having it stolen from him again and again, he’s now fighting to keep what he wants so much to be completely, permanently _his._

Because this time, he’s not just fighting for his life.  He’s fighting for his _happiness_.

The tightness of his chest blooms and bursts with the realisation, like the withering petals of a bud so long kept in the shadows finally opening up to the sun for the very first time.  And it is shining on hands currently typing on the computer that created the Machine, and recreated John’s soul.

“ _Remember that you will die.”_

John doesn’t just want to be alive.  He wants to be alive _with Harold._

Because Harold… is his happiness.

And it’s the one thing worth fighting for.

 

 


End file.
